ND's Texas connection

Freshmen friends move Irish closer to goal

Freshmen friends move Irish closer to goal

December 06, 2008|By MARK BRADFORD Tribune Correspondent

CARY N.C. -- There are just some things that best friends should share. Producing the winning goal to get your team into the College Cup title game is one of those special things for Notre Dame freshmen Melissa Henderson and Courtney Barg. The two longtime buddies combined for the lone goal for the top-ranked Notre Dame women's soccer team Friday in a 1-0 semifinal win over Stanford. It was the third time this season the two had combined for a goal, but on the other two, Barg had the assist and Henderson the goal. This time, Barg scored on a turn-around blast from 15 yards out off a Henderson assist. Irish head coach Randy Waldrum's 26-0-0 team will now face 23-1-2 North Carolina, a 1-0 winner over UCLA, at 2 p.m. Sunday for the national championship. The game will be broadcast on ESPN2. Should the Irish prevail, they will become the first Notre Dame team to complete a perfect season and the first team nationally since North Carolina accomplished the feat in 2003. Barg and Henderson are two of three Irish freshmen from Plano, Texas (defender Jessica Schuveiller is the third) and played on the Sting Dallas Club team together. In fact, Barg said she decided to come to Notre Dame after Henderson called to tell her she had committed. The two freshmen combined in the 14th minute Friday when Barg snuck behind the defender line and was rewarded with a pass to her feet by Henderson. Barg shielded the recovering defender just long enough to turn and place a low shot into the far side of the net for the 1-0 edge. "Those two freshmen have been great all year," Waldrum said. "I feel they are two of the most talented freshmen in the country and they have come in and played like veterans. They are exactly as advertised." Barg's third goal of the season could not have come at a better time. Stanford had the speed and ball savvy to equal the Irish and dominated play for much of the game. "We deserve to come out of this with more than a 1-0 loss," Cardinal head coach Paul Ratcliffe said. "I thought we created some good chances but we just could not break the ice." Tending that "ice" was Irish junior goalkeeper Kelsey Lysander. And she came up big. In the first half she stopped several difficult shots, including two that were point blank. The first was Kelly O'Hara in the 22nd minute. O'Hara broke open behind the Notre Dame defenders for the only time all night, but Lysander came off her line and stopped the shot. "It was a reaction save," she said. "It is stuff we practice every night." The second shot was a redirected header by Stanford's Christen Press in the 27th minute. Lysander credited her reactions again. "Crosses like that are my least favorite play to try to defend," she said. "This time I had to make a decision whether to come off my line and smother it or to stay there. I decided to stay on my line and fortunately made the save." After that, Notre Dame went into a more defensive mode, which enabled Stanford to create lots of offensive opportunities. In fact, the Cardinal outshot Notre Dame 20-12 (the widest shot margin over Notre Dame this year), took three more corner kicks, and had seven shots on goal to Notre Dame's three. But there was method to Notre Dame's apparent lack of offense. Waldrum had his defenders play deeper in the second half, which opened up midfield opportunities for Stanford but kept quality scoring opportunities to a minimum. Rather than dealing with point-blank shots, Lysander was fielding shots launched from outside the 18. Notre Dame's depth was another key factor. Waldrum was able to hold out star midfielder Brittany Bock for the first 15 minutes of the game and they did not miss a beat. Bock is a Hermann Award candidate who has been hobbled by a knee injury suffered late in the season. "She played 30 minutes last week (against Florida State). With the first half substitution rule where you can't put a player back in during the first half, I did not want to start her and then risk not having her late in the half." Waldrum credited his defense as well. "They have been great all year," he said. "It has just been one of those things where we have been so good offensively that a lot of people have overlooked our back line. But I think Carrie Dew and Schuveiller have been great up the middle and Elise Weber and Julie Scheidler have been great as well on the sides."